Writer wish list

[bluntblade]

David Kirk, Charles Stross, Marlon James are my first thoughts.

To elaborate on this, Kirk has done some excellent novels set around the time that the Tokugawa shogunate came to power and he's excellent at writing swordplay, imbuing his fights with a really effective stream-of-consciousness element. And his books meditate on what an existence predicated largely on duty and/or violence does to his characters.

 

Charles Stross' Laundry series has some of the most inventively grisly Chaos-adjacent material I've ever seen.

 

Marlon James, meanwhile, has a great way of instilling a sense of place and fantastical settings. Not to mention he's handy with a visceral action scene.

[aa.logan]

Big fan of Marlon James’ first three books, and agree about his grasp of both action and the fantastical, but really struggled with his most recent, which I wasn’t expecting.

 

Obviously he’s good enough to write *anything* for BL, but I think he’d excel in either horror or Necromunda

[Felix Antipodes]

Funnily enough Charles Stross already has a BL entry to his name. It was a W40K short called "Monastery of Death" and was in one of the very early anthologies. It was so long ago that I don't recall the plot so I'm off to locate and reread it to satisfy my curiosity.

[bluntblade]

Funnily enough Charles Stross already has a BL entry to his name. It was a W40K short called "Monastery of Death" and was in one of the very early anthologies. It was so long ago that I don't recall the plot so I'm off to locate and reread it to satisfy my curiosity.

I may have to grab that.

[Felix Antipodes]

It was in the Deathwing anthology from 1990. Probably only available as an ebook nowadays.

[Noserenda]

Oh i recall that one some real old school oddness. 

[Petitioner's City]

Una McCormack would be my top vote. Possibly my favourite tie-in writer.

 

Out with that field, hmm. The dream would be a writer of the calibre of Hillaryy Mantel, slowly and lovelingly going through The Mirror and the Light, and just wishing we had that world, that depth - and of course that skill - in the setting somehow.

 

Of course in light of the world changing, we need more diverse writers, voices I need to read more of, but which I think BL would benefit from. It's possibly a lack of imagination to say Zadie Smith or the late Toni Morrison, revealing my own limited reading, but I'd love to have again to have fantastic voices like these and many other writers in the setting.

 

One thing I think I liked about say trek tie ins of the early 80s was that they were experimental. High quality writers wrtoe many of them and made their own visions of the setting, each independent - I think "Warhammer" would benefit from this. "Authors' takes on the setting". It would be wildly creative, and reflect what certain hobbyists do anyway - creating their own independent visions of the setting.

[byrd9999]

Of course in light of the world changing, we need more diverse writers, voices I need to read more of, but which I think BL would benefit from. It's possibly a lack of imagination to say Zadie Smith or the late Toni Morrison, revealing my own limited reading, but I'd love to have again to have fantastic voices like these and many other writers in the setting.

 

Definitely need some more diverse writers. Zadie Smith is a little dull for my tastes. Toni Morrison is a fantastic writer, but I don't think her style would really fit 40k. However, Colson Whitehead would be a great choice, he's into alternative histories and sci-fi.

[Daemon Prince Marbas]

I'd love to read a Warhammer Horror novel written by Clive Barker.

[Splog]

Scott Bakker (Prince of Nothing / Aspect Emperor) for grittiness and philosophically and psychologically informed writing

 

Peter Watts to cover some alien otherness

[bluntblade]

Peter Higgins for dystopian grimness and sci-fi strangeness.

[mawhis]

Steven Erikson writing 40k would be epic!

[SkimaskMohawk]

Steven Erikson writing 40k would be epic!

I was thinking this myself. Hed be a pretty good fit for the whole "knowledge/information gets distorted over thousands of years" thing seeing as that's a chunk of the later malazan novels and spin offs. Also writes humans and generally awful people very well. He can also make super-powered slayers that are very much relatable, flawed and multi faceted. Even beloved argel tal's death has nothing on say trull sengar'. That was soul crushing.

 

Any ways ya, Steven Erikson write some 40k.

[mawhis]

 

Steven Erikson writing 40k would be epic!

I was thinking this myself. Hed be a pretty good fit for the whole "knowledge/information gets distorted over thousands of years" thing seeing as that's a chunk of the later malazan novels and spin offs. Also writes humans and generally awful people very well. He can also make super-powered slayers that are very much relatable, flawed and multi faceted. Even beloved argel tal's death has nothing on say trull sengar'. That was soul crushing.

 

Any ways ya, Steven Erikson write some 40k.

 

 

The Tenescowri have got to be the most Grimdark thing outside of 40k

[SkimaskMohawk]

 

 

 

Steven Erikson writing 40k would be epic!

I was thinking this myself. Hed be a pretty good fit for the whole "knowledge/information gets distorted over thousands of years" thing seeing as that's a chunk of the later malazan novels and spin offs. Also writes humans and generally awful people very well. He can also make super-powered slayers that are very much relatable, flawed and multi faceted. Even beloved argel tal's death has nothing on say trull sengar'. That was soul crushing.

 

Any ways ya, Steven Erikson write some 40k.

The Tenescowri have got to be the most Grimdark thing outside of 40k

There's a ton of awful, warped and twisted things that happen to groups of people or that they do in the series. The entire empire of lether and capitalism is dread-inducing, characters like toc the younger and onos tool'an get dealt bad hands constantly, the cult that springs up following itkovian is awful.

 

You want someone who can present the grim realities of civilization and culture? Erikson can do it.

[Guest Triszin]

Guy Haley to work on a 40k Space wolves novel that isnt retconed